The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-09-14
q cARao of eocoANuTs.
4 Pretty Description of the coeoannt.s
Crowth-UnIoadinE = Vessel.

4 Pretty Description of the Cocoahnt's
Growth-UnIoading = Vessel.
Ihaye found queer crowd over at a
Brooklyn pier where cargo OF cocoa
nuts was being unloaded. The largest of
these nuts are shipped here from Aspin-
wall and Cartagena, but the smaller and
finer variety is brought from Cuba and
Porto Rico. A steamers cargo viii
count out from 90, 600 TO 200, 900. I can
never see one of those almost human
faced coooanuts that do not live over
again my idyllic wanderings in Cuba
with stately Don Miguel. and hear his
pretty description, in the old Luyano
posada, of how the cocoanut propagates
itself.
These very eyes, y said the Don. stare
as much the outlook of the cocoanut's
perpetual life as mems eyes are the win
dows of their souls. Through these eyes
the new tree breaks to the sun. The ovllle
is slender, cone shaped mass in the case
at the big end of the fruit. Its sustenta-
ton comes from the rich, milky meat
about 1t, from which It draws its power
as it forces its way to the light through
one of these strange eyes, and In what
ever direction it may be pointed it then
steers straight for the sky. Innumerable
delicate thread like roots fiIl the nut and
feed upon the mother heart. until the
nutrition Is exhausted, when the power
full shell parts like an egg shell from
which struts the young chicken. and the
quick soil receives the outreaching roots
lovingly. Almost as soon as this
tender shoot has reached the air,
leaves form in diminutive represent
tation of the pinnate leaves of
the full grown tree, which sometimes
reaches a height of seventy feet, though
its myriads of roots seldom exceed the
size of your lead pencil. Within fo,lr or
five years fruit is borne, and is continued
forty OF fifty years In never failing and
increasingly bountiful supply, clustered
up there at the top of the trees as if
hiding beneath their plume like tufts of
foliage"
These cargoes of cocoanutE are un-
loaded by the same desperate class that
work in the holds of banana vessels.
They are passed up from below in bas-
kets, each containing from twenty to
thirty nuts. On deck they are counted
and assorted into two grades. They are
then sacked ON deck, 100 first grade and
125 second grade nuts to each sack, and
Immediately carted away. frequently
half the cargo is spoiled from heat; or in
a rough voyage the terrific pounding
anu Dy It1o
time they are landed they are IN rotting
condition. The purchasers of the unin-
jured cocoanuts get the .'sick, - or
'.she, (" nuts, as the vernacular of the
trade terms them, for nothing. And in
these is sometimes found the larger profit.
On Washington and Barclay streets are
great dens where they are turned into
money. The sour and rotten meats are
removed, dried, ground with sugar and
desiccated ready for use in deadly sweet
meats for your children, or consumption
by yourselves In cakes and puddings;
while the shells, shag and ALL wien
ground are worth twelve cents per pound
Cor mixing with your pleasant spices. So
that the cocoanut subject is one we are
bound to digest, however little we like.it,
or however much the honest manufao-
turers and the good doctors make out of
it.-Edgar L. Wakelnan in Globe Demo-